Jonathan Nuñez

These days Nuñez plays both Dunable Cyclops with a Bill Lawrence L500L pickup and a Fender HH Telecaster with Lace Pickups Nitro Hemi, while Brooks prefers JML Custom and EGC guitars.

That goes into my first delay, a Catalinbread Echorec, which is nice for dreamy and misty swelling delays. It has a nice chorus-y glaze, followed by the Earthquaker Avalanche Run, and these days I tend to keep both on…

I like the tightness and compression of an EL34 power stage. It was our Tetra-Fet Drive and Dual Range Boost doing a lot of the work, which helped bring the fullness and fidelity that’s synonymous with our sound. We’re after these real deep and rich hi-fi kinda tones.

In the Reverb Soundcheck video featuring Torche, Jonathan Nuñez is shown using the MXR M-108 Ten Band Graphic Equalizer Pedal.

Right now my pedalboard feels so glued together sonically! The order has changed a bit but most of it is the same - there’s an EarthQuaker Arpanoid which is an octave arpeggiator, though I don’t actually use the arpeggiator side.

It has this warmer, less synthy sound than a Whammy, which is why I got it. I get more weight beneath my strings, it feels more full than just a tiny bit of delay would. Then I have the mini MXR Phase 95...

That goes into my first delay, a Catalinbread Echorec, which is nice for dreamy and misty swelling delays. It has a nice chorus-y glaze, followed by the Earthquaker Avalanche Run, and these days I tend to keep both on…

I like the tightness and compression of an EL34 power stage. It was our Tetra-Fet Drive and Dual Range Boost doing a lot of the work, which helped bring the fullness and fidelity that’s synonymous with our sound. We’re after these real deep and rich hi-fi kinda tones.

He uses that tuner in this video

In the Reverb Soundcheck video featuring Torche, Jonathan Nuñez is shown using the Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb/Delay pedal.

In a Reverb Soundcheck video featuring Torche, Jonathan Nuñez is seen using the Aguilar Octamizer bass effects pedal.

In a Reverb Soundcheck video with Torche, Jonathan Nuñez is shown using the Aguilar Agro Bass Overdrive pedal.

In the Reverb Soundcheck video featuring Torche, Jonathan Nuñez is shown using the Aguilar Tone Hammer Preamp/Direct Box.

Then there’s a DigiTech Hardwire DL-8 to create loops. And to avoid sounding too clean or contemporary, as I tend to prefer sounding a bit trashier and straight-in, I stick an additional overdrive, the Tetra-Fet, at the end of the chain…

These days Nuñez plays both Dunable Cyclops with a Bill Lawrence L500L pickup and a Fender HH Telecaster with Lace Pickups Nitro Hemi, while Brooks prefers JML Custom and EGC guitars.

Pictured here using a Rickenbacker bass with Torche

Seen is this Reverb Soundcheck video about Torche's gear

At 0:58 this interview for Premier Guitar's "Rig Rundown" series released on October 9, 2019, Nuñez describes the genesis of a custom guitar that would replicate the capabilities of the G&L F-100 he used on Admission. Among the parts used was an RGI neck he had been given by Alex Paul.

Nuñez: So, this was something I came up with with a good friend, Joe Koontz. He was in some South Florida bands like Cavity… He used to be in the band triple A, really raunchy punk stuff. And he just got really into building guitars and I played some of Mosrites and a couple of other guitars that he made and they were outstanding. And on the record that we just put out, Admission, I had done a lot of stuff with this whole deal (gestures to the guitar). And it was a lot do with a good friend of mine, Max, lent me… uh, is it… yeah, G&L F-100. And it has this, you know, G&L, I guess, trem, that really was too much fun play and it end up, like, really doing a lot on the record. And later I’m like, “Shit, I need to do that live.” And Joe had offered to maybe collaborate or, like, you know, maybe like trade studio time for a guitar, and I’m like “Okay!” And, super kind dude, Robot Graves, he sent me this neck and I was like “Joe, I have a neck. Let’s make the body.” And he has made a Mosrite that I really liked, but I’m into the guitars with this, you know, kind of carve and contouring and just, big on like, not, you know, being uncomfortable live.

Kies: Yeah.

Nuñez: You know?

Kies: Looks like a [sic] old muscle car.

Nuñez: I know, right? (laughs)

Kies: Sexy curves.

Nuñez: So, yeah, very… You know, from Miami, so yeah… So, I incorporated, you know, the Mosrite stuff that he had done that I’ve really been a fan of; the neck, which has a certain tone; and I guess your mind’s at ease when you’re traveling. You know, checking and stuff, you never know how it’s gonna come out on the other side, but I always love the L500L, from Bill Lawrence. The Master was something I was turned onto by my friend, Bobb, Bobb Bruno from Best Coast. I played a Jaguar that he had a Master on and I’m like “Shit.” I could– I was like that guy that maybe played a guitar you told him to play a little too long. But I just love, you know, the fact that it’s, like, there’s a certain glide, it stays in tune great, um… So yeah. It has a tone, I will say it does have a tone.

Kies: Really?

Nuñez: Yeah.

Kies: I know that you've always kind of been, another Florida company, ECG...

Nuñez: Yeah yeah!

Kies: ...with the aluminum necks, like, what do you like about that, obviously the travel-wise and the consistency's sake, but tonality, what do you just dig about that?

Nuñez: I think there's a certain depth. There's like a waah, you know? Like, ooo. Like, this like, its almost like if you're in the studio and you put a, like a, 2 or 4 dB boost, at like a... 40 or 35 Hertz bell on a bass or something. You always have that glow wherever you're at on the neck. So I feel like this kind of has that and it's a certain sustain that's really like a signature of the aluminum-style necks. But, uh, yeah, I mean, the guitar is definitely designed after like, what I needed to translate the stuff that was done on the record with multiple guitars. And, you know, some of the stuff was pretty– pretty intuitive, other stuff like on "The Spy" was fun to figure out. Like, you know, literally, he put a piece of paper on top of it, a guitar body, before staining it all and like, we drew the pickguard on and, it was a cool collaboration with my friend, you know?

Kies: What body, what did you end up going with here?

Nuñez: This is mahogany.

Kies: Okay.

Nuñez: Yeah, he does all the Koontz custom guitars, they're all mahogany. I mean, he does whatever, like, or like, you know, you could do, like, maple tops or whatever, but I think, like, the default wood he gravitates towards is mahogany, which I have no problem with, you know?

Premier Guitar, “Rig Rundown: Torche's Steve Brooks & Jonathan Nuñez” by Chris Kies (October 9, 2019)> This beauty cherry picks aspects from Jonathan Nuñez’s favorite guitars. It all started with his love affair with his friend’s G&L F-100 while recording Admission. The F-100 he borrowed had a smooth floating trem arm that bends and wobbles all over the new record. “The trem was too much fun to play,” Nuñez jokes. “But once we finished the record, I realized, shit, I need to pull this off live.”> So, with the task of reverse engineering a guitar that is suited for Torche’s established roar and new tones flexed on Admission, Nuñez turned to some more friends. To keep in tradition with bandmate Steve Brooks’ and Torche’s steam-locomotive sound, he got a metal neck from Robot Graves Industries and put it with a curvy, mahogany, Mosrite-style body built by fellow South Florida rocker Joe Koontz (formerly of Against All Authority aka AAA). Nuñez has always been partial to the Bill Lawrence L-500 humbucker and thanks to his buddy (and Rig Rundown alumnus) Bobb Bruno of Best Coast turned him onto the Mastery OMV Vibrato, so those features made into this custom piece. All of his guitars take custom-gauge Dunlop strings (.070–.052–.046–.017–.013–.010). The band’s main tuning is an octave tuning that consists of A–A–D–G–B–E.