Chris Thile

"Well, I bought myself, like so many fellows before me, a Lloyd Loar," says Chris Thille, in this interview, about his Gibson F-5.

"For most of his career, Thile has played mandolins built by luthier Lynn Dudenbostel. He acquired Dudenbostel #5 in 1998, then sold it to buy #14 in 2001. Several years later, he bought back #5 because he liked it so much. “When I first got it back I hardly recognized the sound. The mandolin hadn’t been played much and had gone to sleep. I could still hear it in the background, but I was a little concerned that my memory was bad about how it sounded. It took several months for the mandolin to get back to the sound and feel that I remembered.” His experience with “Dude #5,” as he calls it, convinced Thile that instruments go to sleep if they aren’t played regularly. “I think if you honestly love your instruments, you have to play them regularly.”

Even though he readily admits that Dudenbostel #5 is his primary instrument, he had a nagging desire to own a vintage Lloyd Loar-signed Gibson F-5. " - (http://www.vintageguitar.com/3456/chris-thile/)

In this article it is mentioned that Thile plays a Gilchrist F4 besides his Gibson Loar F5.

I switched from Elixir not that long ago. I had horrible luck with the D strings. I was breaking a D string just about every Punch Brothers set. So I did a blind tasting of different strings with the boys on the bus, the guys in Punch Brothers, and the D'Addarios won out every time. It's kind of that industry standard thing, you know, 'that's what mandolin strings should sound like.' And I think David Grisman is partly responsible for that. I mean, no one pulls better tone than Grisman, and J74s are part of that tone. I'm using EXPs and I have D'Addario modify them ever so slightly for me. I like a hybrid of McCoury and Grisman gauges: .0115 and .016 for the E and A, and .026 and .040 for the D and G. I feel the coating on the EXPs cuts down a little bit on noise.

Chris uses the WA-47 in the CBS Saturday Sessions performances.

"The Wegen TF 140 pick. The pick has seven speedholes that you can cover or uncover depending on how fast you want to play." - Thile in an interview with Mandolincafe.com about the picks he uses for his mandolin in 2006.

It’s exceedingly difficult to find a pick that delivers on all fronts, namely feel, tone, and durability. Indeed, before BlueChip, I’d never enjoyed more than two of those three important qualities in the same pick. Though I’m always hesitant to gush, I can safely say that Mr. Goins makes the most balanced, empowering pick known to me. It almost literally sticks to your fingers, thus minimizing on-the-fly adjustments, drives through the string consistently on both up and down strokes, and faithfully transmits what you and your mandolin have to offer tonally, all this while staying at the top of its game for far longer than I’ve ever experienced.

Chris uses the SM7b as his main mic for the "Live From Here" radio series.

In this clip, Chris is wearing headphones, and turns to the side, revealing the DT770 STUDIO PRO. 80 ohm model

Chris Thile plays the Rigel Mandolins CT-110 in Nickel Creek's "When You Come Back Down" music video, as confirmed by the source "Chris Thile" on Emando. (The picture used in Emando is from WYCBD).

In the video, Chris Thile is clearly seen playing a Flatiron 3M Bouzouki during a live performance at WNRN's studio in Charlottesville, Virginia, as published by WNRN on YouTube.