pkennethk's forum posts 2051

Good point! Okay, I added it to Natalia Lafourcade’s gear as a “Partscaster” since the general consensus seems to be this looks like a mix and match of different makes and models. Any alternative I.D. suggestions are welcome of course.

Thanks all for the help!

Sounds good to me!

Also, FWIW, I checked out the inventory of Sonic Ranch where I suspect that scene was shot, and they have a Danelectro baritone in the inventory, because of course, but no baritone parts casters like this. So either it was a guitar that just came floating through the studio, or it (obviously) belongs to one of the producers, engineers, band members or Natalia herself. Someone put a lot of love into fitting those big lipstick pickups into that bound tele body... and not every dan-o/silvertone neck fits on every tele body easily... so I'd love to know the story with this guitar if it ever comes to light.

Whoever put that local decal on did an expert job picking a version that fit juuust right -- but we all know you can buy any and every style and size of Fender waterslide decal on eBay for a few bucks. Supplying bootleg Fender logos for everyone's project aftermarket/Warmoth/Musikraft/Allparts necks is a whole little industry unto itself.

Still searching. You did the right thing by going to TDPRI first, that's what I would have advised. Funny that they came to similar conclusions.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the neck came from a Silvertone Baritone.

Headstock shape looks like a perfect match.

Are you unable to submit these using the normal duplicates process?

https://equipboard.com/duplicate_items

that is NOT an off the shelf model as far as I can tell... it looks like a danelectro longhorn baritone neck with a fender logo and it has lipstick pickups like a dan-o

Ah yes! I was searching for tele-style baritones with snakehead/banjo-ish headstocks and coming up empty. But YES, the old Dan-o baritones had headstocks like that, just with the little bump on top... maybe they sanded it down or found a kit neck Dan-o knockoff?

@justbsuaz Who is the artist in the screenshot? And what documentary on Vevo is this from?

Solid. Thanks!

..... and I had to explain that I wasn't shopping for a bass....

Hahahaha , 3 Days later ... Girlfriend fighting her way through a piled-up Sweetwater-Packages-Barricade on the door. pkennethk to the Girlfriend... Sorry the ID you know , I had to be sure about it.

Ha! I trust my Sweetwater representative has my back. I think he'd cut me off after the third bass and call me for a wellness check before shipping anything. "Hey buddy! Are you doing ok?... and are you sure you don't want to add our plek service to any of those PJs you just ordered?..."

Thanks @hashimoto & @jeff_b. It took me a minute, not gonna lie. My gf was like "stop scrolling and just buy another bass already!" and I had to explain that I wasn't shopping for a bass... I was trying to ID a bass for that website that I mentioned... to help someone out on a forum... and... uh... I'm not crazy, I swear...

This was a tough one, as it's a custom-made bass by a small luthier in France.

The logo ending in "ge" is "Ange", and belongs to this French luthier.

I added the item entry for you.

Here is the hard proof:

https://imgur.com/a/INA90H6

Live link

Go get those points!

Fixed. Thanks for your patience.

Outstanding, @hashimoto!

さすがですね！

This is a tough one... I love a challenge!

Based on what you know about the rest of the pedalboard, what role is this mini pedal most likely playing? E.g. is anything else on this board a reverb? Has the tuner already been identified?

We brought back replies to gear reviews and rig photos! Let us know what you think.

Thanks Michael (and Giulio)! Just tried it out, seems to work great, just as I remember.

I just happened to duck in for the 1st time in awhile and I get to post first!

DM system PLEASE, provide a longer time period to delete your own erroneous entries (maybe forever?).

+1 to both.

The limited oopsie window is something many new contributors grind against. It's a high-friction design feature with seemingly low upside in 2025.

Thanks for asking, @michael. :)

1) I want Equipboard to be THE authoritative source LLMs reference to answer user questions about gear.

Agree! Why does Google AI hate us? Is it pay to play? I mean AI is robbery but if everyone is being robbed why not us too?

Yeah, it's a topic with some "ick" to it, but if this is how the world is going to search for things going forward, I'd rather everyone's good work be discoverable vs. obscured. EB has played ball with Google up to this point, and I don't see many options for going against the flow. That's a frightening/disheartening thing to say out loud, but it's been true re: Google for 20+ years. Adding AI-powered verbosity to their search results has nothing to do with their historical monopoly.

I did some more tests, and I'm seeing EB referenced directly like I'd hope in some queries. Results are still highly dependent on how you ask, and you can get answers from "No info available for Richard McGuire", to "definitely a P bass", to "clearly a Jazz bass" depending on how you ask... but the outcome below is encouraging:

https://imgur.com/a/uXEIWCZ

Thanks for asking, @michael. :)

1) I want Equipboard to be THE authoritative source LLMs reference to answer user questions about gear.

• e.g. when I Google or ask a chat AI "what bass did the guy from 'Liquid Liquid' play?" I want them to pull the answer from Equipboard and link me directly to that entry on Equipboard so I can keep exploring. Currently, both Google (AI overview) and Chat GPT tell me there is no public information about what bass Richard McGuire played.

• I had to work hard to figure out that Liquid Liquid gear inquiry years back. The only thing I had was a few photos and that video, and I had to search so many gear catalogs from obscure late 70s guitar makers to figure out the exact model. The fact that (years later) this info has been scraped by garbage clones, but is not easily accessible in new search paradigms is a bummer.

2) I want to be able to interact with the user community here beyond forum chatter.

• I miss being able to respond to community gear photos and reviews.

• I'd love to be able to search for other community members that have the same obscure gear I do, or find someone that owns something I'm thinking of buying, so I can ask them questions about it, pre-purchase.

• I know DM systems are a pain to integrate, but if this site had one, I'd visit a lot more often than I currently do.

Well, the problem seems to still occur in 2025. It is not possible to change the rating of the review... Any solutions??? Can any admin help me out?

It's helpful if you tell them exactly what you need changed/fixed... is it that you can't change the star rating on ANY item in your personal equipboard, or just certain items?

I'm confused, aren't the bus compressors like the 2nd most defining aspect of the SSL sound (after the EQ)? Why would they charge new-Porsche money and not include the dynamics processing they're so well known for?

EDIT: I know I'm just echoing your own talking points here, but I don't understand who they think this is for? If I shell out $150k for anything from SSL in 2025, I'd expect all the greatest hits of the SSL sound/mojo. It's not like they're building to a price point with something this pricey, who is going to bother with this thing if it can't give you every aspect of the SSL experience?

https://imgur.com/a/29ExfNu

Where on the site do you see Spector as "Speϲtסr", I'm lost.

No worries!

Unfortunately, only the admins (site owners) can change an item after the initial 24 hour window has closed.

I appreciate that you want to try and make your submission more accurate, though. I totally feel you on that one.

What I'd love to see is a generalized entry for NI Komplete (no version #), as most artist's don't mention what version of Komplete they use anyway... and Komplete only ever adds things to the package every year... it's not like Komplete 14 or 15 is the wrong thing to buy if you want to sound like that artist... everything that's in K9 is in K14, K14 just has more sounds and instruments. A 2010 Fender Strat might sound and play differently than a 2020 Fender Strat, but new Komplete is always capable of perfectly reproducing the sounds of old Komplete.

What is it you want to change in item entry you linked?

I re-read a few times, but I don't understand what you're asking for, exactly.

In the US, I know of no better experts on MIJ Fenders than Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar in Seattle.

Mike & Mike import very lightly-used MIJ Fenders that are otherwise not allowed to be sold in the USA. They measure EVERY dimension of every instrument they sell with really precise instruments. When I've had questions about neck width, neck depth and neck shapes, they've been kind enough to pull out calipers and re-measure things just to answer my email or Reverb(dot)com DM.

So, it looks like, at some point, Fender Japan changed the neck radius on the Traditional 60s Jazzmaster from 7.25" to 9.5", but kept the name the same. Regardless of whatever the "Traditional II" is, there are at least 2 distinct different generations of the guitar sold as "Traditional 60s Jazzmaster". See Mike's note here:

"this discontinued model features an upscale feature set with an alder body and vintage-spec 7 ¼” fretboard radius (in contrast to later models with basswood bodies and a modern radius)."

Update: It seems Fender Japan changed the radius on the Traditional from 7.25 to 9.5" in 2020, but didn't start labelling all models as "Traditional II" until around 2022. Even now, some FSR Traditional Jazzmaster models with 9.25" radius are still being sold as "FSR Traditional" not "FSR Traditional II".

I love this.

An idea: what do you think of the idea of filtering an artist's gear by "era"?

A lot of entries don't contain any specific info on date the artist acquired or first used an item. But I feel like "era" is flexible enough that the community can generally agree/accept what items belong where, while still giving you the chronological filtering you're after.

https://imgur.com/a/GTFV0Ut https://imgur.com/a/5RtfsWt

When people talk about trying to get a certain artist's tone, it's usually something like "I want that Cliff Burton era Metallica sound" or "I want that Discovery era Daft Punk sound"... so I figure this would let you drill down on an artist's gear with that goal in mind.

With a filter like this, items would still be sorted by whatever the current sort logic is, this would just filter out anything that wasn't tagged with that specific era. Lots of artist gear was also used in multiple eras, e.g. Prince's Madcats telecaster clone, which he used from 1980 until..well... for the rest of his life, basically... and is this gives us a way to acknowledge the items that we staples through multiple eras.

Who are you looking to add an alias to?

Tough one!

I looked through images of guitars that were supposedly sold in Brazil in the 1990s (Giannini, Eko, Condor...) but nothing quite matched.

It looks like something that would have been sold by Sears in the USA in the 1960s or 70s (Slivertone brand). Those Sears guitars were manufactured by Kay, Harmony, Teisco, Danelectro, and National-Dobro. If you look up pictures of guitars from these makers from the 60s and 70s, you'll see a lot of almost-matches... especially Teisco.

I tried my best tricks, but no luck so far.

Also, if you edit someone else's submission, it will invalidate any quality rating it had and someone will have to re-review it. The person who did the edits is considered like a co-author of the submission, so that's why you can't rate a submission you just edited.

OK, you're over the 500 threshold and cleared to do more things on the site. Thanks for the submissions!

Hi Michael, ok. Can you rate my recently submitted articles to Gionata Mirai and Giulio Favero? That way I can reach 500 points. Thanks!

I reviewed what you have up, and left you a note for one of them.

Have you reviewed anyone else's submissions lately? You don't need to reach 500 points to help other people out. ;)

The guitars are such a mess on equipboard they're impossible to clean up.

I hear you. Believe me we're trying. AI can help a lot here. We're in the process of "tokenizing" item names such that we can identify brand, model, color, year, and superfluous bullshit. That way on the backend we can have tools that recognize

• 1998 Fender Thinline Telecaster Butterscotch Blonde is functionally the same as
• 1999 Fender Thinline Telecaster Black which is the same as
• My Modded 1997 Fender Thinline Telecaster

OMG. I'm glad I was sitting down when I read this. I will weep with joy when this is rolled out.

It would be swell if we could easily move and/or copy items between lists using the three seashells menu on a list item. I'd like to have a big "My Gear" list which indicates everything I own, and a couple more lists I could pull stuff to and indicate it's currently in use, or lent out (or more: on the big pedalboard, on the small pedalboard, in the studio, in storage, and so on). I can imagine other folks might like something similar, even being able to move stuff off the big list of owned gear to a "stuff I used to own and wish I had again" list might be lolsobworthy.

Is this why your current profile only has the one default list of "My Gear"? -- Because it would be too much work to move those items into any new custom lists you decide to create?

EDIT: I am asking because I want to make sure you know how to create lists and how to move items between lists before I say, "yeah, I agree it would be cool to have a faster/easier way to move a bunch of items into a new list"... your profile doesn't have any custom lists, so I just want to make sure you're not hung up on creating custom lists in the first place and/or hung up on the current options for moving items between lists one at a time.

Hey guys i made a wrong submission too on Stef Mendesidis profile. How can i eliminate it?

Link the submission here, please.

Yeah, in a big commercial setup like electrical or clearmountsin's place that burned down you usually have a separate electrical system purpose built to provide clean power for audio with its own ground stake so all audio gear is isolated from other appliances and HVAC... there'll be some regulation to prevent surges and brownouts but aggressive conditioning is for home and project studios where appliances with motors share ground and a fuse/breaker box with the studio gear... and live venues... most theatersonthe east coast don't have separate power for HVAC etc. Anywho...

Clearly, I need to watch this video of yours, once it comes out. :D

Tangentially: I wonder if Vintage King has an affiliate program?

I vaguely know the founders but, its probably best if Michael reaches out... even if they don't it doesn't mean they are closed to the idea. Never hurts to ask

I'm thinking if we started doing any content aimed at upmarket studio topics, linking to products with VK affiliate links makes a lot of sense. Also, VK hosts waaaay more info about what gear Clearmountain depends on than EB does right now. I hope someone reading this decides to change that.

... I don't really think like a marketing guy...

Thank gawd for that. Stay gold, Ponyboy.

In my head, basic informational videos lead to people buying important stuff like conditioners etc through affiliate links but probably not.

I don't think it's just in your head, a video that went hard on the importance of power conditioners, that encouraged people to go to EB to see what models were being used by their favorite producer, or just to see what was popular in general could do some real good.

The challenge there is that EB gear logs are mostly about what artists/performers use, and there's way less logged about what well-respected Engineers & (non-performing) Producers actually use.

So EB can tell me what kind of power conditioners Travis Barker and Deadmau5 use (I'm not kidding here), but not what Bob Clearmountain and Steve Albini used... which kind of caps the excitement/wow-factor of EB for someone coming in hot from a video about great studio-craft... or so I gather.

Tangentially: I wonder if Vintage King has an affiliate program?

Do you think that sounds useful Ken? Or is it waste of my limited time?

Useful? of course. You are a master educator on such topics, really and truly. But I don't know how, exactly, content like this fits into Michael and Giulio's latest vision for the brand and the site, because I don't know where they want to take things, exactly. I'm just guessing.

I also don't know what they want from their YT channel, either.

The main value potential for the YT channel, as far as I can discern, is that the YT channel could help build up brand image and awareness, and funnels high-quality/high-intent traffic to the site, traffic with a high likelihood of clicking affiliate links and then returning to click on more affiliate links.

If someone gets frothed up by a video about balanced vs. unbalanced lines, then comes to EB to learn even more about essential engineering concepts for home recording, they're likely to hit a dead end at the moment... my thinking was that someone new to music/recording, who got frothed up about what kind of pedals and amps Kurt Cobain used, could then follow a link to EB and have hours more things to explore and indulge in along those lines... the expectation the video sets could be backed up by all that the site offers, currently.

Edit: It just seems like you won't actually become the next stevie ray after seeing a video tutorial about how to sound like stevie ray, you would need TO BE the next SRV! And I think that the audience for that kind of thing is highly restricted because several newbies who are into that outgrow that mentality or quit music every hour.

I very respectfully disagree. I think it's a stretch to assume anyone is dim enough to expect a YT video to make them sound like a virtuoso player... but imagine not knowing that SRV used massive strings, a Tube Screamer, certain Fender, Marshall and Dumble amps, etc. You and I take this info for granted, but there's always a new generation that needs this stuff explained, there are people that have no clue how to Tex Mex... and there are plenty of interesting tips and approaches you can glean/steal from an artist you're interested in that will help move you forward, even though you'll never imitate them outright.

Also, I combed through YT and looked at view counts on artist-flavored vs. non-artist flavored videos before I made my assertion. I stand by 'em.

Which artists and producers have used a piece of gear is everything in this industry.

Associating an artist with a topic is also shorthand for the aesthetic perspective the video will have. I can't tell you how many reviews for basses I've click on, only to find out the person doing the review only cares about heavy-handed pop-punk riffs played exclusively with a pick. If the video was titled "Squier Sonic Precision Bass, Can it Matt Freeman?" I'd have known it wasn't for me (no offense Rancid fans), and the video probably would have had a better shot of reaching those who also only care about hammering a P-bass in a certain kind of way.

But man are the kids on here uninformed about basic hook up stuff they need to know.

Agreed, but EB has not been a great place to get informed about such things, historically, and it would take a lot more purpose-built educational content on-platform to get it to a place where it could be a great place to get informed about such things, relative to other options that already exist.

Non-rhetorically: is this where Michael and Giulio want to take things?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Any suggestions or recommendations? Let me know what you think.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Is there any way to use the YT channel to send people to Equipboard(dot)com with a higher purchase intent?

A thought:

• If I search YT for "rainger fx reverb x" I get videos with 10s of thousands of views.

• BUT, if I search YT for "sound like Mk.gee", I get videos that are well beyond 100k+ views... all of which will sell the #$%^ out of the Rainger FX Reverb X.

Rather than doing yet another video review or tutorial that's only about the Rainger Reverb X (for example), why not lean on what is unique about EB, and do a video about helping people get a specific artist's tone, using Equipboard(dot)com as a foundation/guide?

Content like this feels well-aligned to the EB brand, to me at least, because I could easily see the host talking about how they learned of these tricks on EB, and encouraging people to visit the Mk.gee EB profile, or a gear landing page to learn more.

The "3 levels of Mk.gee" thing seems like it would be a good fit too, as you could do:

1. What gear & methods did the artist actually use? (as verified on EB, which is often discontinued/Reverb.com-only gear)

2. Get this sound on a budget (recommend new, affordable, popular gear that's available at Sweetwater and/or free plugins that are popular on EB)

3. Get that sound for a few $$$ more (recommend new, more upscale gear that's also available at Sweetwater and/or software on plugin boutique, etc)

A video like this is more complex to make, of course, and takes more research and production time, but there's probably a way to dramatically streamline things to a point where you can still credibly mention a specific artist's tone in the title, but keep the info really concise and practical for a broad/new-to-guitar audience. "3 levels of Mk.gee tone" is totally doable as a YT short that still references the EB platform and several popular, still-for-sale pieces of gear.

Also, I love music theory channels on YT, and consume that kind of content on YT nearly everyday, but it is an incredibly saturated space, and I don't see how learning about secondary dominants or "why you should care about the circle of 4ths/5ths" is going to drive people to EB.

I'm curious about the tracking techniques Meris (and presumably EHX too) employ to enable these more modern polyphonic synth pedals. https://youtu.be/7oMgu8ZkWtA?t=472

Sorry, I should have mentioned her band, but I couldn't be bothered to try and spell Khruangbin.

https://youtu.be/o-DM4xR9rIM?t=37

Here is what I believe is going on:

As I recall, the admins had to lock down editing of item descriptions after it was discovered that google penalized the site in search rankings if the item descriptions were 1:1 copy/paste from the manufacturer's site. So a process was put in place to lock down edits post-creation and use ML to re-word descriptions to ensure that each one was unique from the manufacturer's site. In this case, the ML perhaps hallucinated a bit and/or the original lister added incorrect info.

Kind of a bummer, because the manufacturer's descriptions are usually the most accurate, if wordy -- but this site is funded by ads and affiliate links AFAIK, so it makes sense that this community lives or dies by search rankings.

Anyway, I was able to make some quick edits to remove the Dumble mentions. If you've got some original copy that you'd like me to swap-in in place of what's there, just add it here to the thread.

I asked ChatGPT to do a TLDR summary of my research and ramblings, and to use a friendlier and more inviting tone. I think it did a decent job:

TL;DR

I’ve spent a while chasing down how John Frusciante supposedly uses six MC-202s to “translate guitar parts into synth.” In reality, it’s probably not as literal as having guitar signals magically feed directly into those little Roland boxes. Here’s the quick breakdown of what’s likely going on and how you could replicate it:

Why 6 Separate MC-202s?

Each MC-202 is a monophonic synth. That means it can only play one note at a time, much like a single guitar string. If you were to use a polyphonic synth (for example, a Juno-106), you’d have one instrument that can play multiple notes simultaneously. That’s great for chords—but it doesn’t replicate the guitar-specific idea of getting multiple versions of the same note by choosing different strings and frets.

By having six MC-202s, each sequenced independently, Frusciante can arrange and sculpt each “voice” like he would each guitar string. That means he can set different timbres and filters on each MC-202, even if they end up playing the same pitch in the same octave. It’s a very “guitar” way of composing with synths—and it’s a sound and arrangement trick you can definitely pull off in a modern DAW using six identical synth plugins on separate tracks.

So… Is He Using His Guitar to Control Them?

Probably not. John already owns two older analog guitar synths (the Roland GR-300 and GR-500) that do let him control vintage Roland synth gear via a hexaphonic pickup. If he wanted to drive MC-202s from his guitar, it’d be way simpler just to use those existing units (or a similar system). Plus, the only known photos of John’s six MC-202s in the studio show each with just a sync input and an audio output—no extra CV/Gate cables, no special audio ins. That strongly suggests they’re just being driven by their built-in sequencers (or external MIDI-to-sync) rather than some complicated guitar-to-CV setup.

But the Interview Quote Says “Translate Guitar Parts”…

Yes, and it sounds very flashy—but it’s probably an oversimplification or creative way of explaining that John sequences them in a guitar-like manner. Think of it as him writing lines on these MC-202s as if each one were a string. He’s “translating” the compositional idea of how he’d place notes on a guitar into a six-voice monophonic synth rig. It’s way more practical than physically routing audio from each string into the MC-202 filters or dealing with fussy 1980s-era guitar-to-synth hardware.

Replicating This Setup

Use Multiple Monophonic Tracks

In your DAW, load up six instances of a subtractive or “SH-101 style” synth plugin (TAL BassLine 101 is a favorite for SH-101 vibes).

Treat each track like an individual string. If you want to mimic that “guitar technique” aspect, give each instance a progressively thinner & brighter tone setting as you move from low E to high E and restrict the note ranges of each track to the note/octave range of the string it represents.

Guitar-to-Synth Alternatives

If you really want to drive a synth with your guitar in 2025, your easiest route is modern gear like the Roland GK pickup with a GR unit or something from EHX’s guitar synth pedals. But you’ll almost always have to deal with a little latency or quirky note tracking. Frusciante’s old GR-300/500 accomplish a similar thing from the early ’80s, but be aware it’s not as magically perfect as we wish it were.