Richard Bona

This limiter is seen on Richard Bona's pedalboard.

In this video Richard Bona talks about his use of loopers, and demonstrates his vocal mastery with the help of an RC-30 loop station.

On this photo an MXR Stereo Chorus pedal is seen on Richard Bona's pedalboard.

The Taurus product website lists the gear Richard Bona uses.

The Taurus website lists the gear Richard Bona uses.

The Taurus website lists the gear Richard Bona uses.

The Taurus website lists the gear Richar Bona uses.

I come from a very plain sound background. I use to never use effects before. One day I went to a shop in Japan, and the guy who built my fretless bass introduced me to the Roland V-Bass. I tried it for the first time, and I freaked out. I really play fast; in the past I tried some bass synths, and those systems could not pick up my playing at certain speeds. So with V-Bass, that was the first time that a system could keep up with the speed that I was playing. I got hooked up with the V-Bass, and it’s awesome.

I love the GR-20. I combine it with the V-Bass live onstage, parallel. Many sounds are special in there, ya know. I grew up listening to Weather Report; I had a chance to play with Joe Zawinul for two years. So the GR-20 has some of those old-school sounds in it that I love. The horns are great. And there’s some really good distortion sounds. You’d be surprised. After every show people come to me and ask, “How do you get that distortion. It’s unbelievable.” I’m used to it know, but most people don’t realize how much you can do with the bass to make it sound like a guitar and other instruments. I only use about ten sounds, no more than that. And I give them each a number from one to ten, so I don’t have to think a lot about what’s going on. It’s very easy that way. Same with the V-Bass; onstage I have only about six sounds that I use, but they work great for the kind of music that I’m doing.

The product website insists that Richard Bona uses this pedal.

The photos in this interview show that Richard Bona uses this volume pedal.

Photos from the interview on Johnnydemarco.com show Richard Bona using the DigiTech JamMan looper.

In this interview Richard Bona mentions this delay.

This tuner can be seen on Richard Bona's pedalboard.

The Taurus website lists the gear Richard Bona uses.

The product website insists that Richard Bona uses this looper.

The product website insists that Richard Bona uses this pedal.

This photo of Richard Bona's pedalboard shows this volume pedal.